Posted on 08/04/2015 3:01:50 PM PDT by NYer
I think it is, too. However, before the naysayers come in, my faith is not based on whether or not the Shroud is genuine.
There are a lot of books out there contending that the Shroud is a forgery. Did Mattingly ever address why skin bacteria would produce a forgery?
Yup. Surprised anyone caught what I was saying there. Well stated!
PS: Some of my work involves hyper-dimensional math up to and on occasion beyond 5 dimensions, often including “shadows” and “reflections” in those spaces. Yes, the shadow of a 4 dimensional object illuminated in a 4 dimensional space has 3 dimensions.
Yes. Lots have. Google it if you want to find examples.
They have all failed to recreate the properties of the Shroud. Spectacularly. (Some claimed to succeed by ignoring certain aspects of the Shroud such as the 3D properties of the 2D image, the nature of the image existing despite no pigments/paint, etc.)
I have not read Mattingly’s book.
My question was, has Schwortz addressed the theory?
BTW, you can then project the image of that 3D shadow onto a 2D plane. I know — the logo for one of my companies is a projection of a 3D shadow of a 4D object onto a 2D plane.
Also had the 3D shadow “printed” in plastic as a real-world “give away” version of my logo. It seriously messes with your eye when you look at it for more than a few seconds. (Before 3D printing, this thing was almost impossible to make. It now costs only about $40 a pop.)
That's a good start, but we need to think bigger. How many dimensions should God have? 5? 8? 10? String Theory posits 11 dimensions, so how about 12 then (one more)?
For the sake of argument lets pretend the answer is 12 dimensions. Call this G. Okay, so now I'll create a mathematical model with 13 (one more). Call this G+1. So can that model be argued in a sense to be 'greater' than God?
Of course not, and the idea is silly. But why?
The reason is because God is eternal. Not infinite, not forever, but something even bigger: He is Eternal.
"Ack! It's 'forever', not 'eternity'! Get it right! You know how much that annoys me when you mix those up."
"Sorry. Uh, I forgot. What is the difference between forever and eternity again?"
"Look, I told you a dozen times! Keiichi, I already explained this. I swear, the high altitude must be making you stupid or something. Okay, let's go over it again. Forever is in principle algorithmic. It means that there exists, at least in theory, some kind of generating function or description for it. For example, you can express the set of factorials of all non-negative integers like this, written in the functional computer language Haskell:
fac 0 = 1
fac n = n * fac (n - 1)
"The set of factorials is infinite, but there exists a well-formed algorithm that describes how to generate them. A more complex example is the set of prime numbers. For example, here is a function to generate an arbitrarily long list of prime numbers, also written in Haskell:
primesTo m = 2 : sieve [2..]
where
sieve (p:xs) = p : sieve [x | x - xs, rem x p /= 0]
"Now, there is no easy way to predict whether any given really big number happens to be in this set. In fact, it is the hardness of the factorization of large numbers that is the foundation for the computer encryption algorithms that you find on the World Wide Web. [SSL and TLS]. When you purchase something from Amazon with your credit card, or when you transfer money from your Fidelity bank account, your computer is actually using the factorization of a large number into two large primes to encrypt your account information.
"So now let us move up to a more abstract level. Let's define the set S of all Haskell programs that return the answer '1'. Here is the question: Is there a generating function for S that can be described using Haskell itself? In other words, can you write an algorithm written in Haskell, like the ones shown above, that will generate the set of all such Haskell programs?
"The answer is no. In the lingo of computability theory, it is undecidable. According to Gödel you could say that the Haskell programming language is 'incomplete', in the sense that it cannot express all expressible truth statements (members of S) within that logical system. So it is 'imperfect' in that sense. Yeah, I know this is easily provable using the Halting Problem, but bear with me here. The point is, any such sufficiently complex system that can be described using finite symbology is by necessity either incomplete or inconsistent. That is a direct consequence of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem: That no such logical system can be both completely consistent (internally perfect) and can find and prove all its truth statements within that system (is complete). Such a system cannot possibly exist."
Keiichi said, "In other words, it is flawed."
"Yeah. Now let us move up to a really ambitious logical system. Remember when I described to you the Standard Model of particle physics, the so-called 'Theory of Everything'? The TOE?"
"Uh, yeah.."
"If you recall, the Standard Model describes the dynamical behavior of the fundamental particles of the physical universe within a quantum mechanical system whose gauge symmetry can be expressed as a function of the Lagrangian, L."
"In other words, it's a model. A system."
"Yes. And so in principle it can be generated algorithmically, although as a practical matter that's actually infeasible."
"Okay."
"So now, here is the big question: Is this model perfect? In the Gödelian sense?"
"It's a finite description, so no, it is not."
"Correct. So could you conclude that, in that sense, that the design of the physical universe is flawed?"
"Sure. In the sense that the quantum states are based on the operation of that finite TOE model. Okay, fine. But I still don't see what you are driving at."
"Don't you see, Keiichi? One of the big arguments against the existence of God is that His creation is flawed. God is perfect, the argument goes, but his creation is imperfect. Creation is messed up. And so atheists claim that this apparent contradiction refutes the existence of a perfect God."
"Ah, I see. But we just established that a perfect creation is impossible to create."
"Bingo! Yay! I love it when you get clever." She playfully approached him to tousle his hair, but he jumped back before she could do it.
"Hey, don't muss up my hair! You know I hate that."
"Feh, like your hair can get any more mussed up than it already is. You never comb it."
"Just don't touch it. Anyway, I think I get what you are saying."
"The point is, God's creation is flawed by necessity. It is not His fault, it just is. By logical necessity. It is intrinsically flawed due to its nature of being described by finite rules."
"Got it."
"Now let's get really ambitious. God is perfect. So tell me, Keiichi, how would you describe God then?"
"You can't."
"And why not?"
"Uhm.."
"Before you answer, think carefully about the little thought experiment that we just did."
Keiichi thought hard. "Hmm.. the nature of God cannot be described by any finite logical system."
"Hooray! You got it! You win a kewpie doll! This is what we mean when we say God is eternal."
"In other words, God is literally indescribable."
"Correct. When we call something 'eternal', what we mean is that it cannot be described in finite symbols. Now you are ready to understand the distinction between 'forever' and 'eternal'. An entity that is eternal is something that cannot be conceived using finite terms. This is why Gödel cannot capture God within his nasty logic trap. Because to capture Him that way Gödel needs to first come up with a symbol that fully describes Him, and there isn't one.
"Is that why Jews are so reluctant speak God's name aloud?"
"I like to think so. You see, in a certain sense one can argue that God has no name. For he literally cannot be named by any symbol. More specifically, His conception cannot be labeled or captured in any finite set of symbols that fully describes Him."
Keiichi said, "I am rather amazed that I actually understood that."
"Heh, good boy. I admit these are rather deep concepts, but I think they are important."
(Excerpt from After Ragnarok Chapter 37.)
No number of dimensions nor any other other mathematical model will ever be sufficient to describe God.
He is not only bigger than we imagine, He is bigger than we literally can imagine, mathematically or otherwise, in any sense of the word.
1 John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
I am known to offer that to see something in its true essence one must be of equal or greater dimensional essence. So, when we see Him as He is, we shall be of the same dimensional essence. I won't bore you with the analogy of flatland and a three spatial dimension object. BUT, Jesus gave this Physics lesson to Philip as recorded in John 14.
That book's theories fail because it doesn't address all of the features of the Shroud. One of the failings is that the Shroud shows some of the bones and teeth below the surface of the skin.
That could not be a manifestation of bacteria on the surface of the skin, regardless of any exudations or effects they may have, unless those exudations or effects are increased over bones and teeth.
It also does not address how those exudations or effects can be directed in a collimated vertical only nature away from the body after leaving the skin. As you can see, it fails in many ways.
I can see how a bacterial coating on the skin may exude gases which may tend to discolor the cloth with a stronger colorization the closer the body is to the cloth. However, it does not explain the accuracy of the image given the nature of gas to expand to fill space available in a globular fashion, not in a linear mode. The farther away from the body, the more blurred out the any details would be from diffusion of the gas. Any detail would be lost in chaos. That is not seen at all in the Shroud. Instead we see a laser like collimation of what ever it was that created the image as it reduces its ability to impart color with distance.
We cannot falsify something we cannot test for. . . since we cannot raise someone from the dead, we cannot photograph them and see what the differences would be. Ergo, we cannot falsify the evidence in front of us. Therefor, science is unable to test those sort of images. There are none. There is nothing to compare it to.
2000 years later, technology still cannot reproduce the 3D images on the shroud.
It’s real.
Ipso facto....Christ is exactly who he said he was - the Son of God.
Since Secondo Pia photographed the Shroud in 1898 and discovered that the NEGATIVE was a positive image of a real man, hundreds of people have tried all kinds of ways to duplicate the image. All have come up short of duplicating the image.
To be successful, it has to account for all of the features of the Shroud. None have been successful. None really have come close. . . although some have been sort of analogous, but they all failed in fundamental ways and were easily debunked. The primary one is that those attempts all used some kind of medium or pigment. There is none on the Shroud.
Well, at the end of the tribulation the believers who were murdered during that time are resurrected. When Satan puts his man out there and says he is god, use the same type of cloth to bury a murdered believer and wait 3 years or so.
Mr. GG2 and I agree with you and we would project even further that this intense burst of light or energy which left the “photograph” of Christ on the Shroud was due to Jesus resurrection and basically passing into a parallel universe which is Heaven.
We are revisiting the book of Thomas. Especially where he says to the effect of look for me by lifting a board or a stone.
OK, thanks. I sort of thought the article was implying that science wouldn’t be able to capture the images even if they somehow had access to a raised live human from a dead body. Which might be the case, but like you say it’s a moot point without access to raising of the dead.
Freegards
Thank you. Makes sense, and I don’t want to waste time reading about a bacteria theory if it’s already been refuted by an expert. Or if the effect can’t be replicated; and I think Schwortz would know, since he’s heard it all.
Piytar:
You said “... the image was burned into it when He converted back to His true form aka rose from the dead.”
I remember a discussion with an elder in the church I belong to about the Shroud. He put forth a similar reasoning for how it was created, along the lines of: “The image was imbedded in the Shroud as it fell through Jesus’ body at the moment of resurrection.”
Sans-Culotte: You stated:
“I think it is, too. However, before the naysayers come in, my faith is not based on whether or not the Shroud is genuine.”
I agree with you. I believe that the Shoud is real, but my Christian faith is NOT based upon whether or not the Shroud is real. It is based upon my belief in the resurrection of Jesus and his promise to us.
There are two show I’ve seen on tv that have dealt with the Shroud that are quite good. One deals with an examination of the Shroud as a 3D image and a computer analysis of it that is used to recreate a computer generated image of Jesus. The second is a show where a bust of Jesus’ head is created using 3D imaging technique and a one of the new “printers” that carves solid objects.
And I remember a third show about the face clothe that covered Jesus’ face before burial. The clothe is at a monastery in Spain and records of it being there go back to around 900 AD. The image on the face clothe was super-imposed over the face image on the Shoud and there is an exact match.
I am of a mind that this aspect of the image on The Shroud is a sort of touchstone. Think of it as a sort of monolith buried on the lunar surface.
It awaits the day that man's technology can decipher its meaning and prove beyond any doubt Who is represented by this image. I also think that when this day comes, millions of non-believers will come to see the Light and come to seek Jesus. It will be a watershed event and will come after the Tribulation and usher in a thousand years of peace as Jesus returns to shepherd His flock.
Just one man's opinion.
Bingo.
This is also one of the main things that skeptics use to point out that it is a fake produced by the hand of man.
They say that the crown of thorns being included is proof that someone "painted" it. Why else would they include it other than to get the masses to believe it is an image of Jesus?
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